The extent to which former justice minister Alan Shatter was excluded from top-level talks on the phone recording controversy was due to his perceived closeness to the former Garda commissioner, according to independent TDs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace.

There seems to be more division in the Labour Party over the tabling of a bill to allow for abortion in the case of fatal foetal abnormalities.

TD Clare Daly has accused the Government of deliberately appointing women to key positions within the courts and Gardaí to distract from cronyism.